2010/09/21 by Andrés Villarreal · 3 citations
Medicine · Social Sciences · #Anthropology #Categorization #Dark skin #Demography #Dermatology #Ethnic group #Geography #Indigenous #Latin Americans #Medicine #Political science #Poverty #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Skin color #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Social class #Social science #Social stratification #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/0003122410378232
openalex publication_date 2010/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/06
Latin America is often used as a backdrop against which U.S. race relations are compared. Yet research on race in Latin America focuses almost exclusively on countries in the region with a large recognized presence of individuals of African descent such as Brazil. Racial categories in these countries are based on skin color distinctions along a black-white continuum. By contrast, the main socially recognized ethnic distinction in Indo-Latin American countries such as Mexico, between indigenous and non-indigenous residents, is not based primarily on phenotypical differences, but rather on cultural practices and language use. Many Mexicans today nevertheless express a preference for whiter skin and European features, even though no clear system of skin color categorization appears to exist. In this study, I use data from a nationally-representative panel survey of Mexican adults to examine the extent of skin-color-based social stratification in contemporary Mexico. Despite extreme ambiguity in skin color classification, I find considerable agreement among survey interviewers about who belongs to three skin color categories. The results also provide evidence of profound social stratification by skin color. Individuals with darker skin tone have significantly lower levels of educational attainment and occupational status, and they are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to be affluent, even after controlling for other individual characteristics.